Greg Louganis in the news

Halfway around the world, he finally had a hint of what it felt like to be the other guy, the poor kid from Crawford or Grossmont or Patrick Henry who had to compete against the reigning Olympic silver medalist in a San Diego high school diving meet.

Actually, what Greg Louganis felt first was the back of his own head cracking against the springboard, whereupon he was filled with dread. Not the fear that he’d injured himself, but the fear that his big secret was out for the world to see, given away by the blood in the diving pool at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.

Eventually, the worry that he’d be found out as HIV-positive gave way to the realization that he had to get back on the springboard with the lingering effects of a concussion, no longer the invincible Louganis. As it was, Louganis, 28, had been “holding on by the skin of my teeth” to stave off the teenage-daredevil act that was the Chinese diving team, and now he still had to dive the finals of both his Olympic events with those five stitches in his skull.

“Once I hit my head on the board,” Louganis said, “from that point forward, I became the underdog.”

The first part hurt bad. The second part? Not so bad.

Instead of impressing people with his sheer dynamism and incomparable skill as the greatest diver in history, Louganis won the springboard with courage and resilience, successfully defending his Olympic championship. As he climbed the 10-meter tower for his last Olympic descent a week later, though, the weight on his back grew heavier with each step. The pressure was put on him by the well-nailed final dive of 14-year-old Xiong Ni.

“I had to follow it, and I was feeling it,” said Louganis, now 50. “Suddenly, I had this image pop into my head, this visual of my mom sitting at home, watching the Olympics on TV. Knowing her, I could’ve bombed the 31/2 and mom would say, ‘Oh, what a pretty splash.’ It made me laugh, put things in perspective.”

Frances Louganis, though taken by cancer in 2004, is the inspiration who finally brought Louganis back for a proper salutation from his native city. Greg Louganis, whose upbringing in East County was both painful and the foundation of his success and status as an Olympic icon, will be inducted Monday into the San Diego Hall of Champions.

“Really, honestly, the reason I’m doing this is in memory of my mom,” Louganis said. “I don’t pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing — the Olympic Hall of Fame, the International Swimming Hall of Fame — but these are the type of things she’d really get a kick out of.”